As English teachers, we try our best to guide our students and improve their English. However, we can’t visualize what is going through the head of an English student when he or she is speaking English… unless, of course, the student is trying to envision a English grammar tree.

These diagrams have been kicking around QQ boards and the Chinese interwebs for years already, and we thought you’d enjoy seeing another perspective on English learning in China.

If these diagrams are confusing to you because you lack Chinese reading skills, well, they are just as mystifying to a majority of Chinese commentators:

scarlett_rp：
Reading this made me dizzy! I’d rather just learn by rote memorization[picknose.emo]

MilordJ：
Completely don’t understand this, does learning English require such lengths? Learning a new language is based on a feeling…

JealousyRay：
It’s very long, I didn’t read my way to the end[smilingwave.emo]

算—：
Really, I don’t have the patience.[dizzy.emo]

广州仔YUYU：
I get dizzy the more I look at this[barf.emo]

While this looks like a “handy” memorization cheat sheet, it is actually the opposite: a dynamic flow chart to allow someone to quickly navigate English grammar and tenses on the fly—if these diagrams can fit into your pocket, that is, or you can put them onto your iPad..

Guangzhou Daily described the diagrams as so:

Actually, [learning] English is just like this — Learning by rote is not as efficient as using it directly to easily learn and understand English grammar as seen in these English grammar tree diagrams. It’s been said that once anyone finishes reading this diagram, their English will improve…

Many native English speakers didn’t learn English by rote, but instead learned as the result of an adaptive process by which assimilation into a culture was reinforced by daily correcting and testing. If that proves to be outside the limits of your average IELTS applicant, well, there’s always the route of rote memorization.

As an English teacher, you should bear in mind: always see the forest for the trees.

Photos: Guangzhou Daily via Weibo